The present invention relates generally to the treatment of end stage renal disease. More specifically, the present invention relates to methods and apparatus for monitoring the performance of peritoneal dialysis.
Using dialysis to support a patient whose renal function has decreased to the point where the kidneys no longer sufficiently function is known. Two principal dialysis methods are utilized: hemodialysis; and peritoneal dialysis.
In hemodialysis, the patient's blood is passed through an artificial kidney dialysis machine. A membrane in the machine acts as an artificial kidney for cleansing the blood. Because it is an extracorporeal treatment that requires special machinery, certain inherent disadvantages exist with hemodialysis.
To overcome the disadvantages associated with hemodialysis, peritoneal dialysis was developed. Peritoneal dialysis utilizes the patient's own peritoneum as a semi-permeable membrane. The, peritoneum is a membranous lining of the abdominal body cavity. Due to good perfusion, the peritoneum is capable of acting as a natural semi-permeable membrane.
Peritoneal dialysis periodically infuses sterile aqueous solution into the peritoneal cavity. This solution is called peritoneal dialysis solution, or dialysate. Diffusion and osmosis exchanges take place between the solution and the blood stream across the natural body membranes. These exchanges remove the waste products that the kidneys normally excrete. The waste products typically consist of solutes like urea and creatinine. The kidneys also maintain the levels of other substances such as sodium and water which need to be regulated by dialysis. The diffusion of water and solutes across the peritoneal membrane during dialysis is called ultrafiltration.
In continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis, a dialysis solution is introduced into the peritoneal cavity utilizing a catheter. An exchange of solutes between the dialysate and the blood is achieved by diffusion. Further removal is achieved by providing a suitable osmotic gradient from the blood to the dialysate to permit water outflow from the blood. This allows a proper acid-base, electrolyte and fluid balance to be achieved in the body. The dialysis solution is simply drained from the body cavity through the catheter.
Peritoneal dialysis raises a number of concerns including: the danger of peritonitis; a lower efficiency and therefore increased duration of dialysis hours compared to hemodialysis; and costs incurred when automated equipment is utilized.
A number of variations on peritoneal dialysis have been explored. One such variation is automated peritoneal dialysis (“APD”). APD uses a machine, called a cycler, to automatically infuse, dwell, and drain peritoneal dialysis solution to and from the patient's peritoneal cavity. APD is particularly attractive to a peritoneal dialysis patient, because it can be performed at night while the patient is asleep. This frees the patient from the day-to-day demands of continuous ambulatory peritoneal dialysis during his/her waking and working hours.
The APD sequence typically lasts for several hours. It often begins with an initial drain cycle to empty the peritoneal cavity of spent dialysate. The APD sequence then proceeds through a succession of fill, dwell, and drain phases that follow one after the other. Each fill/dwell/drain sequence is called a cycle. APD can be and is practiced in a number of different ways.
Current APD systems do not monitor the patient intraperitoneal pressure during a therapy session. Current systems simply limit the external pressure (or suction) that a pump can apply to the line or lumen that is attached to the patient catheter. If the patient is located below the system, sometimes referred to as a cycler, a gravity head will add to the positive fill pressure that the cycler can apply to the patient catheter. Conversely, if the patient is located above the cycler, the gravity head will decrease from the positive fill pressure that the cycler can apply to the patient catheter.
The monitoring of intraperitoneal pressure would be useful because cyclers will sometimes not fully drain a patient between cycles. Specifically, currently-available cyclers are unable to determine whether a patient absorbed some fluid or whether some fluid is simply not able to be drained out because of the position of the patient or the catheter.
As a result, some currently-available systems utilize a minimum drain threshold to determine the amount of fluid that should be delivered to the patient during the next fill. For example, if 85% of the fill volume has been drained when the cycler determines that the patient is “empty”, the next fill volume will be 100%. If only 80% were drained, the next fill volume would be limited to 95%.
A negative ultrafiltrate (uF) alarm will sound when the patient has retained more than a predetermined percentage of the fill volume. The predetermined percentage can typically be either 50% or 100% of the fill volume. However, the patient can override this alarm if he/she does not feel overfull. The number of times the patients can override the uF alarm during a single therapy may be limited by the software of the cycler. However, the uF alarm typically does not consider the actual ultrafiltrate that may also accumulate in the peritoneal cavity along with the dialysate.
Currently-available cyclers fill the patient to a specific, preprogrammed volume during each cycle. The doctor prescribes this fill volume based upon the patient's size, weight and other factors. However, because currently-available cyclers cannot monitor intraperitoneal pressure, the doctor cannot take this factor into account when formulating the prescription. It is also known that intraperitoneal pressure (IPP) has an effect on ultrafiltration (UF).
FIGS. 1-3 provide schematic illustrations of current APD cyclers. None of them attempt to monitor intraperitoneal pressure.
Referring to FIG. 1, a cycler 10a is illustrated which includes a dialysate container 11, a patient 12 and a drain container 13 are illustrated schematically. The infusion of dialysate from the container 11 into the patient 12 is caused by the gravitational head indicated at 14 while the draining of used dialysate from the patient 12 to the drain container 13 is caused by the drain head indicated at 15. The cycler 10a includes no sensors for monitoring the pressure inside the peritoneum of the patient 12. A single lumen 16 connects both the dialysate container 11 and drain container 13 to the patient 12. Valves 17, 18 operated by the cycler 10a control the flow of either dialysate from the container 11 to the patient 12 or waste material from the patient 12 to the drain container 13.
Turning to FIG. 2, in the cycler 10b, the drain container 13 and dialysate container 11 are contained within a pressurized chamber 19. The chamber 19 can be pressurized or evacuated to either fill or drain the patient. Again, the selective operation of valves 17, 18 control whether dialysate is being transferred to or from the patient 12. Again, no sensors are provided for detecting or monitoring intraperitoneal pressure of the patient 12.
Turning to FIG. 3, in the system 10c, a dialysate container 11 is connected to a pump 21 which, in turn, connects the dialysate container 11 to a common lumen or catheter 16 which is connected to the patient. A fluid flow control valve is provided at 23 and is controlled by the cycler 10c. The drain container 13 is also connected to a pump 24 which, in turn, connects the drain container 13 to the lumen 16. A control valve is again provided at 25.
The drain and fill rates of the cyclers 10a-10c illustrated in FIGS. 1-3 are determined by the gravitational head (see FIG. 1) or the suction or pressure (see FIGS. 2 and 3) applied to the patient line 16. Typically, the cyclers 10a-10c fail to optimize either the fill rate or the drain rate because the pressure is either fixed by the gravitational head or the pressure or suction applied by the chamber 10b of FIG. 2 which occurs at the opposing end of the patient line 16. Thus, without measuring the intraperitoneal pressure or having a way to estimate the same, it is difficult to optimize either the drain or fill rate. In the case of the cycler 10c in FIG. 3, optimizing the drain or fill rate is guesswork due to the lack of any pressure reading at all.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved cycler that measures patient intraperitoneal pressure during a therapy session, including both during the drain and the fill as well as the dwell. Further, there is a need for an improved cycler that measures intraperitoneal pressure and which would use that data to more completely drain a patient between cycles. Further, there is a need for an improved cycler which would accurately measure intraperitoneal pressure to avoid overfilling a patient. Finally, there is a need for an improved cycler which would monitor intraperitoneal pressure during both the fill and drain cycles to optimize the speed at which the patient is filled and drained and to therefore increase the dwell portion of a therapy session.